Ashwin Chandran, Chairman, The Southern Indian Mills’ Association (SIMA), urged Prime Minister Narender Modito remove both the anti-dumping duty on VSF and also the 10 per cent import duty on cotton. He said that both the high value added market segments account around Rs.150,000 crore business size and employ over two million people, fetch GST revenue of Rs.5,000 crore and also forex earnings to the tune of Rs.75,000/- crore apart from catering to the value added segments.
Chandran said that VSF and superfine cotton value chain supplies to the international brands, and the price crisis is being utilized as an opportunity by the neighboring countries like Bangladesh,leading to an increase in imports. He stated that India has been mainly relying on the American PIMA and Egyptian GIZA and other ELS cotton for the domestic and international markets apart from the home grown DCH cotton. The industry has been mixing the imported cotton with the indigenous cotton, as the availability of Indian cotton is not even 20 per cent.
The industry has also been using Bunny cotton grown in Telangana and other regions for mixing with the imported cotton and produce fine count yarns and its products. The DCH cotton was costing around Rs.52,000/- per candy of 355 kgs during October 2020 and Rs.65,000/- in January 2021 and the same got increased to Rs.73,000/- after the levy of 10% duty. This has greatly impacted the entire value chain, added Chandran.
